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I see an OC3 connection with propaganda here.

> Now, there is a problem with how long trials last in Italy. It's a hard issue to tackle, in part due to the magistrates' staunch opposition to any sort of reform.

Dear readers, please look up the reasons for the opposition to the reforms before believing this bloke. Let's see the most recent one

A council of three judges to initiate wiretapping, plus other 5 of 6 to end a trial. All different. That must speed up trials by making them impossible, I guess.

As a more general example that would make Romans laugh their classical asses off, see wikipedia on Berlusconi 'problems':
All Iberian 2 (false accounting): not guilty (law changed by his own administration)

First Court: on September 26, 2005 Berlusconi was acquitted because the new law on false accounting makes it illegal only if there is a specific damaged party reporting the fact to the authorities [1]. This new law was passed by Berlusconi's coalition after the beginning of the trial, and was claimed by the opposition to be an ad personam law, i.e. aimed at acquitting Berlusconi.

PS. I am Italian too, so according to your fine ad-personam self deprecation theory, I am wrong too, not to worry about my examples, right? LOL

... and to get away with them changed the judges and the constitution... there is a popular italian blog being translated in english, one of the most popular blogs in the world actually. http://www.beppegrillo.it/

he is a comician, his tones are satira, humor is one of the last things left to italians to stand such a corrupted government.

mafia won't do anything ..for the same reasons why sharks don't eat lawyers ;)

BTW he's not the president, nor many Italian's prime minister. He's a media mogul dinosaur (owns 3 major TV channels and bribes the channels he doesn't own directly). Many of us are waiting for the net to squash him down.

He fears the Internet.

Here for his post http://www.beppegrillo.it/eng/2008/12/open_letter_to_rupert_murdoch.html

Beppe Grillo is an Italian *comedian* turned blogger turned person fed up with the current state of italian affairs. He tried (so far in vain) to promote laws signed by the populace, which would not allow politicians to be in the Parliament if they have been convicted by courts.

On any other country (well, most of them) this would be implied, wouldn't it?

No chance!

Read on to http://www.beppegrillo.it/eng/condannati_parlamento.php for the state of the art of the Italian parliament.

25 politicians in the Italian and European parliament convicted by courts.

Did they steal candy? No chance.

We're talking about judge corruption, extortion, that sort of stuff.

On topic: Berlusconi seems he'd like now to create a UNIQUE ID for every net citizen so that they'd be univocally identified on the Internet.

Sigh.

Here for his post http://www.beppegrillo.it/eng/2008/12/open_letter_to_rupert_murdoch.html

Beppe Grillo is an Italian *comedian* turned blogger turned person fed up with the current state of italian affairs. He tried (so far in vain) to promote laws signed by the populace, which would not allow politicians to be in the Parliament if they have been convicted by courts.

On any other country (well, most of them) this would be implied, wouldn't it?

No chance!

Read on to http://www.beppegrillo.it/eng/condannati_parlamento.php for the state of the art of the Italian parliament.

25 politicians in the Italian and European parliament convicted by courts.

Did they steal candy? No chance.

We're talking about judge corruption, extortion, that sort of stuff.

On topic: Berlusconi seems he'd like now to create a UNIQUE ID for every net citizen so that they'd be univocally identified on the Internet.

Sigh.

The source of the information is not just Beppe Grillo's blog, since that redirects to this article by La Repubblica, the main Italian newspaper, and the text of the proposed law itself.

In the text of the proposed law, I read: (Art. 2:1)

Per prodotto editoriale si intende qualsiasi prodotto contraddistinto da finalità di informazione, di formazione, di divulgazione, di intrattenimento, che sia destinato alla pubblicazione, quali che siano la forma nella quale esso è realizzato e il mezzo con il quale esso viene diffuso.

This means, in brief, that any product with purpose of information, formation, diffusion and entertainment meant for publication is actually targeted by the law, with no exception for no-profit sites. You only need to be a provider of information to be required to register your activity (Art. 6:1). Mr. AlbertoP, you are talking out of your ass, and Mr. Levi in his interview is lying (or he's incompetent, or both).

Now, some background for you Americans about what is happening over in Italy: there is mounting dissatisfaction with the current political class, which is seen as highly corrupt and mostly busy with covering its ass. I voted for the current government (Prodi, centre-left), and there is no way I am going over to the other side (which would be Berlusconi's), but I am myself very dissatisfied with the current bipartisan climate, and it seems I am in good company. Last year the parliament passed a general pardon to solve an overpopulation problem in jails (you read right: too many criminals, let's put them back on the streets!) which caused a spike in crime rate; the actual reason for a pardon instead of building more jails was that the pardon covered also crimes committed by certain politicians. This, the fact that the government is more busy with infighting that with maintaining the promises given in their 280-page program presented at the last election, the personality of jackass-politician Clemente Mastella (who attended a mafioso's wedding and is now fittingly minister of Justice) and many other things caused a general discontent.

Enter Beppe Grillo. A well-known comedian with a history of getting banned and censored for jokes on politicians since the '80s, he started a blog a few years ago and, in the current climate, decided to organise a "Fuck-off day" ("Vaffanculo day", V-Day as in V for Vendetta), a series of national rallies all over Italy and abroad. 4-letter words aside, the idea was to gather signatures for some popular-initiative law proposals (no felons can run for office, two-term limit in parliament, and so on). About a million people participated, and 300,000 signatures were gathered (even on an Italian scale, this is quite a success).

Politicians got scared and started to attack Grillo almost in unison; this law is an effort to silence Grillo and anybody who would take his place.

For the good news: infrastructure minister Antonio Di Pietro (yes, I voted for his party and I'm damn happy I did) said that if this law proposal is not retired he's torpedoing the government and forcing new elections. Nothing straightens out politicians like the threat to lose their post... Grazie Tonino!

Yes, the original post was basically vaporware, and "questionable" in origin in the sense that who has written it (http://www.beppegrillo.it/) has a personal interest to make things worse then they are.

But it is true that the law text was extremely generic, and so prone to every kind of interpretation, pessimistic or optimistic.

The basic problem is that italian laws are often very badly written (in the sense that are basically and fundamentally unclear). And in the confusion, everyone can say everything...

We're italian and that's only an announce. Do you really believe that we can build something like that? Well, an interesting reading about it on grillo's blog